


Off The Deep End

by DisloyalOrderOfYoungVolcanoes



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Gen, Hints of Peterick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 18:03:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11362740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisloyalOrderOfYoungVolcanoes/pseuds/DisloyalOrderOfYoungVolcanoes
Summary: On Genius, Pete explained the lyrics of Young and Menace line by line. For the line "If I am off the deep end/I'm just here to become the best yet",  Pete talks about a time when he felt like he flew off the deep end - when a salad exploded in his car and he didn't want to talk about it with his therapist at the risk of sounding crazy. That scenario was the premise for this fic. See the Genius posthere.





	Off The Deep End

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the June Fall Out Boy Creations Challenge on Tumblr. The theme was 'Pete Wentz' to celebrate his birthday. My prompt was M A N I A era.  
> Keep being amazing, Pete.

Pete was running late _again_.

He’d tried everything he could over the last week and a half to get settled into a normal, regular schedule, and most importantly to be on time. A few times he’d even tried to be early, but none of it was working. His therapist had told him to make small changes – changes that he could control – like waking up 15 minutes earlier or setting a timer while he was in the shower or leaving the house ten minutes earlier than his normal departure time. 

He’d tried, he really had. None of it worked. He slept through the multiple alarms he had set, he had forgotten to set an alarm for the shower, and he actually ended up leaving the house about ten to fifteen minutes later than he had wanted to leave. Today was no different, except he was en route to said therapist, and he knew she was going to ask him how the being on time thing was going. If he arrived at her office late, it clearly wasn’t going so well. 

Pete had checked the traffic before he left the house and his watch, and even though he was running late he decided that he could get to the office right on time as long as he didn’t hit any out of the ordinary traffic. His therapist’s office was about forty five minutes away, and ten minutes into the drive he realized it was almost afternoon and he hadn’t eaten anything yet today. 

Taking another chance at arriving to his appointment later and later, he stopped at a small, local quick service place and grabbed a chicken salad. He’d started to eat it as soon as he had the plastic container in his hands, walking back out to his car. 

Now he was driving down the 101, salad on top of the paper bag it came in, top open with a plastic fork at the ready, sitting gingerly in the leather passenger seat. Pete looked at his watch. The traffic was moving, and at this rate he would be only about two minutes late to his appointment. He smiled smugly to himself. “Two minutes late is basically on time,” he said out loud. It would be way better than the last few appointments where he was twenty minutes late. 

He’d only been able to eat a few forkfuls of the salad on the way to his car, and this would probably be the only time he would have a chance to eat today, since he was booked solid with appearances and interviews after his therapy appointment. He looked at the road, then to the salad, then back at the road. The traffic wasn’t stop and go so he had no concerns about eating this right here, right now, as he was driving. He always ate in his car – French fries, shakes, granola bars – a salad wouldn’t be much different. 

Keeping his eyes on the road, Pete used his right hand to carefully pick up the plastic container from the passenger seat. He steadied his knees and slowly moved the container onto his lap, pushing the lid open so that he would have full access to the salad inside. He picked up the plastic fork with his right hand and jabbed down hard into the bed of lettuce and chicken. 

Pete quickly shifted his eyes down to the salad in his lap and surveyed the contents on the fork. _Good enough_ , he thought and brought the fork up to his mouth while keeping his left hand on the steering wheel. It was a bit difficult at first, keeping his eyes on the road while blindly stabbing the fork into the container in his lap, but after a few times Pete had gotten the hang of it. 

Finishing the current bite in his mouth, Pete moved the fork down into the container on his lap yet again. This time, instead of the fork hitting the soft bed of salad, Pete felt the plastic fork scrape and bend against the hard plastic bottom of the container. “Dammit,” Pete hissed as he lifted his arm to quickly look down at the salad in his lap. He noticed there was a small hole in the salad contents where his fork had continually picked at the same spot. He pushed the lettuce and chicken around in the plastic with the fork, spreading the rest of the contents out, keeping his left hand on the steering wheel. 

He glanced up at the road quickly and his eyes grew wide as he saw the car two feet in front of him suddenly come to a complete stop. His right foot instinctively lunged towards the break. “SHIT!” he yelled, slamming on the breaks as hard as he could, left hand bracing the steering wheel, a scowl on his face. He threw the fork down and grabbed the other side of the steering wheel with his right hand. The car in front of him was getting closer and he was sure he was about to get into an accident. 

Pete’s eyes grew wide as he realized what was about to happen. He pushed down harder on the breaks, feeling the vibration shoot through his sneaker and up his lower leg. His car jerked forward suddenly to a hard, quick stop, seventy miles per hour to zero in a matter of seconds. As the car grinded to a stop, the open salad container in his lap bounced off of his thighs and up into the air, lettuce and croutons and slices of chicken covered in salad dressing flying up into the space in front of Pete’s face and the steering wheel.

“Fuck….no no NO,” Pete yelped, watching the contents of the salad fall back down and rest in the container, on his pants, in the center console, and on the helm of his Gucci jean jacket. A piece of chicken had even made it onto the passenger seat. Pete glared out of the front windshield, sitting perfectly still, knuckles white on the steering wheel. He had successfully avoided rear-ending the car in front of him, but there was chicken Caesar salad strewn throughout the front of his car and all over him. 

Pete let out a long, deep sigh and ran his left hand down his face. He rested his hand over his mouth as he surveyed the road in front of him. None of the cars were moving. “Oh my God,” he said under his breath into his hand, “I’m gonna be so late and I’m covered in salad. This is the shittiest day ever.” 

Pete moved his hand away from his mouth and slammed the top of the steering wheel hard with his palm, feeling the heavy thud reverberate through his whole hand. “Dammit!” he shouted, hitting the steering wheel one more time. He looked around. Slimy lettuce covered the black gearshift and thick slices of chicken rested on his right thigh. At that moment, he noticed pieces of salad stuck to the side of his beloved jacket and he groaned. “Not the jacket,” he said under his breath, shaking his head. 

Pete looked at his watch. There was no way he was going to make his appointment on time, and frankly, covered in salad, he didn’t even want to go. Deciding that the traffic in front of him wasn’t going to start moving any time soon, he began picking up the pieces of lettuce and chicken off of the car interior and his legs and placing them back into the plastic container, still on his lap. He looked up and the cars in front of him began moving again. He let out a breath of relief as he picked up the plastic container and flung it onto the passenger seat. So much for eating the rest of the salad. Pete cocked his eyebrow and started to think. 

“I should call my therapist and tell her I’m running late because of traffic. But calling is admitting that I _am_ running late and I don’t want to admit that, not after everything we already talked about. I also don’t want to talk about this fucking salad that just exploded all over me and the car. I cannot go into my appointment with salad dressing stains on my fucking jacket and pants. I guess I need to go home. I need to change. Yeah, I need to change. But should I call her” Pete mumbled out loud to himself as he placed both hands back on the steering wheel and moved his foot to the gas pedal. “Yeah, I guess I’ll call her, if traffic’s moving now, I should be able to get there just a little after my appointment was supposed to start…and I’m too close now to turn around, I guess I’ll just take the damn jacket off. I am not talking about this. Pete, don’t bring this up in there, she’s gonna think you’re psycho,” Pete continued, out loud, as the car picked up speed.

Pete was bargaining with himself, trying to talk through what to do, and he was starting to feel wound – like he would never be able to be unwound - and like he was going out of his mind over this stupid salad situation. He needed to unwind before he got to his therapist. He couldn’t wait that long and he didn’t want to risk blurting out something about what had happened in the car. 

He needed Patrick. 

Pete enabled the Bluetooth in his car as the traffic began to return to normal speed. 

“Call Patrick”, Pete said out loud. The Bluetooth was silent for a moment, and then answered with a chipper mechanical female voice: “Calling Patrick”. Pete looked down quickly at his now empty lap. Oil marks glared up at him from his tight, dark jeans and he groaned. “Those aren’t coming out,” he sighed as the phone rang. He heard the click as the phone picked up. 

“Hello?” 

Pete heard the familiar sound of Patrick’s voice through the car speakers and he instantly felt calm, more levelheaded. 

“Hey dude, uhh…” Pete started, unsure of what he was even going to say to Patrick. He was supposed to be calling his therapist right now. Clearly that wasn’t happening. 

“You ok Pete? What’s going on?” Patrick asked cautiously, his voice soft and gentle. 

Pete’s eyes scanned the road and he took a deep breath. “Yeah, yeah I think…I just, I’m on the way to my therapy appointment,” he started. 

“Mhmm”, Patrick answered quietly, urging Pete to continue. 

Pete started talking again, quickly. “And I’m supposed to be working on being on time and shit, and I was doing ok, well, not really, I left late, but anyway, I was gonna be there on time, but then I got stuck in traffic on the 101, like standstill traffic and then I was trying to eat this goddamn salad and I had to slam on my breaks and it literally exploded all over me, all over the car, I mean there’s stains on my pants man. It’s on the leather. I don’t want to talk to her about this I’m already gonna be late and I smell like Caesar dressing and I can’t tell her about it because she’s gonna think I’m crazy and I don’t want to fucking talk about it…” 

Pete heard Patrick breathing on the other end of the line, listening, taking in everything he had said. Both men were silent for a moment before Patrick responded. 

“Pete, it’s ok. It’s going to be ok. You don’t have to tell her anything about the exploding salad, ok? You don’t have to…”Patrick started in his calm, soothing tone until Pete cut him off. 

“It’s on the jean jacket!” Pete blurted out, glaring at the road. 

Pete heard Patrick take a breath. 

“Oh no, I’m so sorry Pete. I know how fond you are of that jacket. But just go ahead and take that off before you go in, ok? And try to ignore the stains on your pants, ok? Don’t even look at them. You don’t have to say anything about the salad if you don’t want to. You don’t have to tell her everything,” Patrick continued, keeping his voice even. 

Pete’s face lit up as he maneuvered down the highway. Suddenly, he felt instantly better – grounded – and he smiled. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, I don’t have to tell her everything. I didn’t even think about that. I just don’t wanna talk about it-“ 

“Then don’t,” Patrick cut in matter-of-factly. “You just talked to me about it. That’s it. It’s done. No more talking about the exploding salad, ok?” 

Pete sighed. “Ok, yeah, no more talking about the exploding salad”, he repeated confidently, a slight giggle in his voice. He heard Patrick laugh and he smiled, eyes still on the road. “Thanks man….sorry to be so…neurotic”, Pete said tenderly. 

“Never be sorry Pete. You know I’m here for you,” Patrick answered, a smile in his voice. “I’m glad I could help. Now just go in there, and don’t even think about anything that just happened in the car ride over there.” There was silence for a minute on the line. 

“Dude?” Pete asked suddenly. 

“Yeah?” Patrick answered. 

“Am I gonna be on time for this appointment?” Pete asked quizzically. 

Patrick laughed his goofy laugh. “Hell no dude, you are going to be late as _shit_. I can’t help you with that.”

Pete laughed as he pulled into the parking lot. “Just thought I’d try,” he said endearingly, feeling centered and a million miles away from the panicky, neurotic mess he was in the car. 

He was only ten minutes late to the appointment. Oil stains be damned.

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a mess...I'm sorry. But it was fun to write!


End file.
